Tuesday, June 30, 2009

As of approximately 11:23am, I will be joining the ranks of these awesome plastic people. I've finally ended my lengthy job search, at Old Navy!

I never really wanted to do retail, but it seems that the people there are great fun, and the discounts for Old Navy, Gap and Banana Republic are awesome. And there are supermodelquins! And the hours will fit my future schedule.

So my interview was at 11. I had time to call Darryl and Momma [it was her last day of work today, before she moves up to her awesome new job] and I ate some Subway. At 12, I was back to the store to meet 4 other newbies [who were NOT hired just minutes before], and we did 4 hours of orientation. Good times.

So there we have it. Months of job searching done. I look forward to money, and discounted clothes.

Monday, June 29, 2009

The weather here has been so freaking ridiculous lately. Its its not ultra hot, its raining. Those are the options, and they suck.

Last week, some hot air balloons decided to come on over to say hello.

This weekend was Darryl's nephew's 6th birthday, so we spent the day with the family. It was fun... they're nice. And hilarious. Sadly, we went to see Transformers 2, which I was totally excited for it.

Transformers 2 is the worst movie ever made.

The rest of the weekend was just spent watching season 5 of Lost, and general hanging out. Nothing too crazy.

This week I have two job interviews, which is really nice. Wednesday is Canada Day, so I'm hoping the proposed week of rain decides to clear up for that day. And hopefully I'll get to see Quatchi again since the Olympics will be heavily promoted! I need a picture of him and I in the summer, to add to the one of us in the winter! LOL

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Remember 1994? It was the International Year of the Family AND the International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal. Good then that I've got some hockey and family pictures for you. Apparently, 1994 was a short year. Enjoy!

I moved on up to Junior Novice, leaving the Bumblebees behind for Kevin's Welding and Iron Works. Oddly enough, the jersey represented a bumblebee more than the jersey i wore while I was a Bumblebee. I'm front row, far left.

Look how cute I was. My dad even used orange tape on my socks, to sort of match the uniform. LOL

We headed on down to Detroit to visit some relatives, including my great aunt Anne. This first visit was to her beautiful huge home in Grosse Pointe [her kids also live there in their beautiful huge homes]. The second time, she was in a beautiful huge old age home. The third, she was in a coffin. It was beautiful and regulation size [I recall it was blue]. She was a great lady.

Grade 2 featured this radical class picture, in which they were too lazy to make us all line up. I'm in the middle, flanked by the mushroom cuts of Rebecca C and David. Mando is the first girl in the top row [non-teacher] and Natalie is rockin' a sweet side-pony.

What's this? my hands on an atlas? My destiny as a geographer begins here. Or possibly it began with all those trips I took before this point.

Friday, June 26, 2009

I am totally using this image that Mando told me about as a ploy to get you to read another post of mine, and also to post something before I end up with THREE Flashbacks in a row. Sorry this week was slow.

I have an interview next Friday. That's good. Please wish me luck!

And now, the sadness. Both sadness of this tattoo, and what it represents. Have a good weekend, all!

Monday, June 22, 2009

As promised, on the heels of 1992, comes Flashback 1993. For those of you playing at home, that's 1 more than 1992. This year had a LOT of great vacation pictures, but the post would have been huge, so sadly there weren't that many included. We're all caught up now, and I promise Flashbacks will go back to Sundays as scheduled! Enjoy!

I loved being a Bumblebee so much that I went for round 2. White team again. You can differentiate between 1992 and 1993 by the colour of the T-shirt at the neck.

This was at my grandma's birthday. Most of the pictures from that day were crappy. There was one of my aunt wearing a toy fire fighter helmet. It almost made the cut. Anyway, these are my great aunts: Sister Clare [she was the rockin'est nun aunt ever] and Dorothy.

Nothing says PICNIC quite like a school gym. Here I am, clearly assaulting Amanda S's dress. Must have been some nice fabric. I'm such a creeper. Also, Adam has elastic pants, and Elyse still looks the same [she even wears that dress sometimes LOL].

There's my bear! Yay! ... Mrs. Delahunt has a death grip on me. On the left is Mrs. Lecuyer, and in the middle is some TA or something, possibly named Julie?

Me and bear again. Featuring bear placemats. I miss those oldschool clipart programs that printed the pixely greeting cards and banners. So much colouring!

One random day, we packed up the car and drove on down to my aunt Frances' house in Pembroke. Here I am in loser overalls, with Alison, Alison's Glasses, and my cousin Erik.

We got sick of Erik, so we headed out west. If you blow up this picture [click!] you can see Dad and I standing on top of the hoodoo in the centre. Who doesn't love Drumheller, Alberta?

We also hung out on a glacier in the Athabasca ice field. It was cold. The crevasses were deep. Good times. Must return.

We went to Lake Louise. Its the Louiseiest!

Then we came home and I was hurried off to Grade 1. Still with Mrs. Delahunt. 3 years with one teacher is crazy, yo! And now she wouldn't even remember me to see me. Seriously. I've said hi to her. She remembers my mom and sister though. Lame! Clearly, blue was in that year. I'm the blue shoelaces. One of the few shoe tiers. Good for me. Sitting beside my neighbour Lorraine, and Mando is rockin' a sweet vest.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Please, dear reader, use your imagination to travel back in time, to Sunday, June 14, 2009. Pretend that on that day, I followed through with my weekly commitment to flash back to my childhood through photographs, rather than waste the entire week by not doing it. Well, I've got some time to kill before Darryl wakes up, so here it is: 1992 in all its glory! And just because you're special, I will play catch-up tonight when I get home, and give you 1993 as well. I'm sure you're looking forward to that!

This was possibly the first year that dad built me a sweet awesome hockey rink in the back yard. It wasn't properly shaped, but it encompased every possible inch of our yard, minus that area it cut around a tree LOL. It was great.

The Bumblebees called me up, requiring my sweet skills. You'd better believe I won a trophy for something that year!

This is Dad's family. Grandma, the brothers and sisters, their spouses and kids. There have since been additions.

I win this fashion show. This is the fam. Alison's glasses and Dad's boutenier were competing for the prize of Biggest Object Ever.

Moving right along, this is Rebecca C (not to be confused with D) and I doing a Beauty and the Beast puzzle. Best movie ever. Clearly we did all the parts with pictures, and left all the hard crap. Good job. I recall a similar Aladdin puzzle. Those were sweet big puzzles.

Here I am out of my natural habitat. That's me on a beach, guys! Welcome to Cavendish Beach in PEI.

I even got to play in the Atlantic Ocean. I believe we saw jellyfish.

I'm on a ferry!

Here I am, waiting for the bus on my first day of Senior Kindergarten. Thanks for staying a hall-and-kitchen length away, mom. I could have used your moral support. LOL just kidding. I loved school.

Here is the class picture. For convenience, my readers are easy to locate. Mando and Rebecca D are wearing red leggings. I am standing above Rebecca on the far right. Elyse is at the top of the staircase that I'm at the bottom of. NOTE: The next class waiting for their picture to be taken, over by the swings. Well done, people.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Saturday was the big help Darryl move to his new apartment day. I got to drive a U-Haul, which is enjoyable since I will jump at any chance I get to drive. We didn't get to park close to his building, so there was a lot of walking, and he had way more stuff than anyone thought. This was not good for my foot which had been in pain for a week. The farther I walk, the more it hurts. That really sucked.

We got to the new place and Mando showed up to help us move in, and she stayed there to greet the internet/cable guy while we were gone to return the truck. The move went smoothly. Then we all did some unpacking and TV watching and pizza eating. Good times.

Sunday was spent watching TV all day, since my foot was in pain.

Monday, I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to get my foot looked at, since it was potentially fractured. As I waited in the hospital, I was mentally blogging the time in my mind. I had a whole layout of what times various things happened, including funny things from the people around me. But as the hours dragged on, my mind died. I read 130 pages of my book. When I arrived, the wait time listed on the board was 4-5 hours. Then 9 hours. Then 10-12 hours.

I got to the hospital at 3:30pm. At 7pm, I got a hot chocolate and cookies at Tim Hortons. At midnight, I got a bottle of water and a chocolate bar at the vending machine. At 1:10am, they called my name. I was moved to the emergency room. The nurse told me I could take a nap, so I did. An hour later, the doctor woke me up. We chatted. Shortly after, an orderly came to take me for an X-Ray. He walked fast which sucked to keep up on my SORE FOOT. X-Ray was fast and fun, then I had to run back to my area with the orderly. Eventually the doctor returned, with a verdit of no fracture, but a prescription to pick up the next day for my inflammation and such. On my way out, I asked him the time. 3:30am. 12 hours in the fucking hospital. Buses no longer running. Walk home on your sore foot. Good times.

In more exciting news, I was selected from Round 1 of the Coke contest to become a Torch Bearer for the Vancouver Olympics. Please be excited with me. Round 2 [of 2!] involves writing a 200-220 word story about how I help the environment. I had a week to submit it, but I did it last night. I'm never one to leave things. By August 5, I should know if my super awesome dream will come true. I have a 1 in 10 shot at winning. I'm hoping that my odds will be increased by people who have lost interest, or don't want to write the story LOL. Think good thoughts for me!

I know I owe y'all a Flashback for Sunday, so I'll get on that later. Have a good day!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

On Saturday, while Darryl and I were hangin' out with the GG, Mando was movin' on up. For some reason, people generally trust my judgement... she moved into the building I lived in last year with Tim. The apartments have SO MUCH SPACE, and they're Transitway adjacent!

Since she'd been in Ottawa several hours, Mando was obviously bored. Darryl and I headed over to her place, where we spotted this lovely moon over the canal. Sadly, my camera's flash is apparently SO AWESOME that it lit the entire world, and this picture turned out much brighter than expected.

While we waited for Mando to come to the lobby to get us, I showed Darryl my old apartment [door] and snapped a sweet shot of my old mailbox. Oh, how I checked that mailbox.

We went upstairs and got the official tour of the apartment, and then of the enclosed sunroom/balcony thing, which pretty much has the best view of any apartment I've been in in Ottawa. She's got a full 180 degrees. She can even look at the building Darryl will be moving into on Saturday. Interestingly enough, I can look across the city at Darryl's building as well. But not Mando's... there's another building blocking it.

Sadly, the view includes direct looking at the slums 20 feet away. But I think seeing the river, downtown, green space and even Parliament Hill is a pretty fucking good view, and it makes up for the slum view.

That night, Michelle and Marc came over and I've just realized now that I was actually in a group of friends that had more guys than girls. This may have been the first time since birth. We were ultra random and did a puzzle, and then played a game. Apparently until 4:30am. Then we still had to walk home. Blah!

Monday, June 8, 2009

This past weekend featured Doors Open Ottawa. However, I feel that this is a bit of a misleading name, since it seems that the buildings participating actually still had their doors closed. I think a better name would have been Doors That Can Open Ottawa, or maybe You Can Come Into Our Buildings As A Special Treat This Weekend Only Ottawa.

Whatever the name is, Darryl and I took part. Sadly, we had planned on doing 5-7 things over the weekend. That did not happen.

We DID, however, take the long walk to Rideau Hall, the home of the Governor General, Michaëlle Jean.

First, we walked the grounds, which are large and tree filled. Many of the trees were planted by international heads of state. Smart people picked trees such as Sugar Maples. How the International Year of the Child managed to come to life and plant a tree, I'll never know. Anyway, here is a lovely inukshuk.

Up next was this sweet totem pole. Oddly, the plaques for some things, such as this, were way the hell across the lawn, not actually close to the objects at all. It makes no sense!

Hello!

We then headed for the weeping willow [we took a moment to untangle some of its strands].

There was a statue called Osmosis. Oh 1993, you're so crazy!

Then we headed back closer to the driveway, and went for a swim.

We dried off near this tree that is ripping itself apart [emo]. Actually, there was a massive bolt inside holding it together. That will be fun when it rips apart and hits someone someday LOL

I'm not sure if you can tell or not, but this Sugar Maple, planted by Queen Elizabeth 1 in 1939 looks totally diseased. Very sad.

Eventually, we made it to Rideau Hall itself. We only got to tour the front rooms, and our group was too big, and even though she was home, the GG didn't come say hi to us. Rude. You should always be courteous to guests in your home.

We decided to get the hell out of there, heading back down Sussex Drive. According to this picture, more people were fleeing Ottawa than coming over the bridge from Quebec.

And here is us, all outside in the sun. I'm sure I collected some new freckles that day.